Blue Ridge Bonfire

Lovettsville, VA, Oct. 11:

Patsy Cline

Winchester, VA, Oct. 11: The town has still to come to terms with its most famous resident. Patsy Cline climbed to the heights of the Country Music charts between 1957 and 1963 but tourists are pretty much on their own in her hometown. At Patsy's home, we were approached by a neighbor who as a little girl would run over to Patsy's to hear rehearsals on the back porch. She said not only was Patsy from the wrong side of the tracks but she was a very beautiful woman who created problems in many area marriages.

Across the street is the home (l)Patsy bought for her mother, a seamstress who, according to the neighbor, made all of Patsy's clothes. Down the street is the house (r) where Patsy married Charlie Dick.









Patsy attended Handley High School but dropped out to help support her family by working at Gaunt's Drug Store. The store display all sorts of Patsy memorabilia but is closed on weekends.


















Patsy made recordings at G&M Music at this location at 38 W. Boscawen St. (l). She performed at WINC Radio.









The Patsy Cline mural on Indian Alley near Cork St.
Patsy's grave is on the outskirts of town.

Union Station

The American republic built its capital in a classical style perhaps harkening to the democratic ideals of ancient Greece or the republican ideals of ancient Rome and no doubt to convince visitors, and moreover itself, of the gravitas of its revolutionary sovereignty. By 1907, this architecture moved into imperialism, if not quite fascism, with the building of Washington's Union Station.

If one looks closely at the statues, and particularly the eagles, one sees a heaviness, something much more authoritarian than a democratic republic. For now this transition away from the democratic republic finds its full fascist flowering on the Mall, ironically, in the World War II memorial, which looks as if it had been designed by Albert Speer, himself.